


Let's Be Parents

by RyMagnatar



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Post Game, also also its thanksgiving, also there are trolls, and Halloween, and also there are some past memories but they're not that strong, everyone is different ages again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-23
Updated: 2012-11-23
Packaged: 2017-11-19 08:45:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/571390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RyMagnatar/pseuds/RyMagnatar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(A couple of drabbles of eridave, from fluffy things like painting nails to more intense things such as adopting a kid. Some are shorter than others. The story spans several years.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nails

"Stop wigglin' your toes, Dave." 

You grumble and force your toes to go still. Clammy McCold-Fingers had put stupid cotton balls between each toe, but _apparently_ that wasn't good enough to keep them apart so he had to hold every damn one of them. You wouldn't complain if he had warmed up his stupid troll hands before he'd taken to the painting part. It was bad enough your feet were cold on their own, you didn't need his negative temperature'd ass to steal all the rest of your heat. 

With a roll of your eyes, you huff and lean back on the bed until you're on your back. You close your eyes. 

Cold as he was, he was diligent in painting your toes. You could feel the careful strokes that he did for each one. As he finished your pinkie toe, you began to lift your foot, so he could switch over. Then you felt something cool on your ankle. You glance down and see Eridan softly kissing the top of your foot.

Blushing furiously, you lay back down and mutter, "Idiot."

You feel him smile against your skin.


	2. Hair

An eye for an eye, he'd called it. You didn't know how nails exactly equated hair, but when you'd finished with the final touches of Dave's nails, he had declared it was 'his turn'. His turn for what he didn't tell you until he'd brought out your hair products from the bathroom. 

Now, without a mirror, you could only guess what he was doing to your hair. He kept combing it and muttering to himself. He sat on the bed while  you sat on the floor. You kept looking down at his toes to distract yourself from his hands, but he'd just guide your head back up with a tap to your horn. The plastic of your comb tapping your horn made your guts twist around far too warmly. 

After an eternity of waiting, Dave finally hands you a mirror. 

You look into it, fearing the worst and what you see is...

your normal hairstyle.

Well. Almost. The back is a little fluffier and that purple stripe of yours is a little softer. There's not as much gel to hold everything in place. You know that wisps will escape and soften your expression entirely. You look up at him. "You hardly changed anythin'."

"Well yeah," he replies, putting his hands on your shoulders. They're so warm. "There's little you can do to improve perfection."

Your fins flood with blood, you can feel it by the sudden rushing of your heartbeat in your ears. Dave chuckles and leans down, kissing your temple. 

"Stupid," you mutter. "You can't improve on perfection at all."

He just laughs.


	3. Pooltime

You're sitting on a chair drinking soda while Eridan works sunscreen onto your back when the kid comes walking up. He's got big gold eyes and little nubby horns that just make you think of Karkat. You slurp from the straw and arch an eyebrow at him. 

He's got a little red floaty around his middle. It's in the shape of a crab. You glance over your shoulder and see Eridan staring at him like this kid is a phantom. 

"Sup," you say to the little troll. 

He points his finger at Eridan and says, "Are you hurt?" 

"What?" Eridan asks back.

"You have bandages on your side. Did you get hurt?" The boy frowns a little.

You feel Eridan's hands tense on your back, pressing against your skin. You lean back into them. He give a little sigh and says, "Nah kid. I'm a seadweller, see the fins?" You can see them move out of the corner of your eyes, "I have to wear this to protect my gills from the chlorine. It could really hurt me, but this way I can swim in the pool like everyone else." 

"Oh." The kid thinks about this. " _Oh._ " His eyes grow very, very wide. "I think that would help my friend! He doesn't swim in pools." 

"Is he a seadweller?" Eridan asks. 

The kid nods, "He has horns like you do." There's a shout from across the pool and the kid turns his head. You only catch the tail end of the shouted name."

"...kri!"

"Coming mother!" He calls back. He waves to you and Eridan. "Thank you for your time." He trots away, holding the crab floaty to keep it from falling as he goes. 

Eridan breaths out a soft breath behind you, "Oh." 

"Was that?" You ask.

He laughs, "About time they were born." 

You grin. Yeah. It was about time.


	4. Bubble Tea and Crepes

“They’re back!” Your coworker whispers to you as she comes in from taking her orders outside. You give a little sigh.

“Who’s back this time?” Honestly, this weird obsession of hers was creepy. She paid way too much attention on her customers. She was even learning _names_ and _histories_. She spent too much time thinking about the love lives of other people.

“The seatroll and his boyfriend!”

That makes you pause. You lean to the side and look out the window to the table outside. Sure enough, your little teenaged coworker is right. The seatroll and his boyfriend have returned. “That’s what, three weekends in a row? What did they order this time?”

“Boba tea and crepes!” She giggled, “Isn’t that romantic?”

You give her a flat look. Sure. Romantic. You look out there again. “Meulin, go tell the cook their order.” She scampers off. As odd as she was, she was a good listener. That makes you smile a little. Oh the irony.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you brother?”

But the man sitting outside is hardly a brother now. Everything got so… jumbled. You see him lean in to talk with Ampora, smiling and reaching up to brush a lock of black hair behind a fin. At least he was happy, that was all that mattered. 


	5. Double Bike

“She’s a good kid, but honestly a little tiring.” You rip up little bits of bread and hand them by the handful to Sollux. “I don’t think I’d feel like I’d have to do so much if she didn’t come from such a troubling place.”

He takes the bread bites and throws them to the ducks gathering around the two of you. “You aren’t responsible for her Rose. She’s not your kid. Our connection to her is just memories, just an alternate past self. Besides, you were saying how it looks like she doesn’t remember anything?”

“Not that she ever talks about herself. It’s always that sweet couple there or those kawaii uguu babies here. Getting Meulin to say one word about herself is like pulling teeth.” You hand him some more bread and watch as the ducks flap their wings at each other.

Sollux is interrupted by a blaring radio. The two of you look over and you can’t help yourself from laughing. With scarf streaming behind himself, Ampora was sitting pretty on the back of a two-person bike. He was the one biking while Dave, sitting in the front, was singing along to the music. You couldn’t hear him and could barely understand the lyrics. The two of them passed by, zooming down a hill and into the distance.

You look to Sollux. He looks back at you.

The laughter bubbles up quick and sharp. You cling to each other as you’re reduced to giggles. Sollux manages to recover his breath first, “You said he was the coolkid!”

“I said,” you wipe away tears from your eyes, “That he _thought_ of himself as the cool kid!”  Then you’re laughing again and he’s a shaking mass of giggles in your arms.

You manage, between giggles, to say, “I’m so glad that your duality never got us on a bike like that.”

He gives you a wicked smile and you just start laughing again. 


	6. Decisions in Onesies

It began with bacon.

Dave stopped in the middle of the store, mid-sentence and everything, and so you turned around to see him staring at one of those glass doors. He walked forwards slowly and then pulled open the door. He came back to the cart with a couple packets of bacon and dumped them in the cart.

Before you could even ask him why, he was grinning, gripping the edge of the cart and leaning forward. “We’re fucking _adults_ ,” and then he kissed right there in the store like he’d never done before.

You didn’t have the heart to tell him that bacon wasn’t in the budget and you bought all four packets.

* * *

You came home from work to find Dave in the kitchen, cooking chocolate chip pancakes and bacon. This was not the first time. In fact in the last month it was the eighth time that you came home to pancakes and bacon, or the equivalent thereof. 

However, it was the first time you came home to Dave in a onesie. It was brown and had cloth feathers in a little fan on his ass. He turned around to look at you and his face was framed in a little felt yellow beak and a red thing hanging below his chin.

He greeted you with a wave of the spatula and said, “Yours is in the bedroom.”

“What.”

He plucked at the monstrosity to fashion he was wearing, “It’s in the bedroom. I figured you’d want to clean up after work.” He gave a little smirk and added, “It’s warm.”

With a mixture of horror and curiosity, you head to the stairs. On the way there, you see the living room is full of a mass of chairs, blankets and pillows. Oh. So this was one of those nights.

  On the bed was a folded up green and brown abomination. You pick it up and realize that it’s a duck, from the terribly made beak and glassy black eyes. It makes you want to cry, thinking about wearing it. But then you imagine how Kanaya would scream if she saw grown adults in something like this and you can’t get out of your work clothing fast enough.

When you come downstairs, you discover Dave has pulled out the stops for tonight. The table has what you’re pretty damn sure is the biggest chicken you’ve ever seen and there’s the pancakes and that looks like bacon crumbled up on top of mashed potatoes and whatever that is in that container is covered in toasted marshmallows. None of this was here when you came home. “Dave,” you hold onto the back of a chair, trying to think of reasons why he would need this much seemingly random food, “are you human pregnant?”

Dave pauses with a glass half way to his lips. You can smell it from here and it smells alcoholic. And like eggs. He puts the glass on the counter and then puts his hands over his flat stomach and goes, “My god. I’m human pregnant!”

You know then he’s joking, but you’re still worried about all the damn food. He brings you over a glass and says, “Drink to my pregnancy, eridarling.” You sniff it. He sighs like you’re helpless, “it’s spiked eggnog.”

You drink, of course, and it’s thick and creamy and definitely alcoholic. “’s good. I think you should be human pregnant more often.”

“Only in November.” He replies, and you still don’t get it but its food and you _are_ warm and the eggnog stuff is cool. So you shrug and mumble something. After a while of putting the last of the pancakes on a plate, he looks up from the spread of food to you and says, “You don’t remember, do you?”

Cautiously, you shake your head. Depending on what you forgot this could be end terribly. You will never forget the way the ice cream cake splattered on the wall when you admitted that you really didn’t know it was his birthday. That day was etched into your mind, but a lot of other ones weren’t.  Speaking of which it was almost then. Not yet, but almost. You had to get him something good.

This time, Dave just grins like he knows this big secret and herds you into the living room. “Let’s make the fort.”

An hour and a half later, with pillows on the floor, blankets overhead and half the food dragged in here and spread in front of you like some sort of insane banquet, the two of you lie on your stomachs watching stupid shows about who the fuck knows. Tv in general has always been boring to you and human TV in particular was asinine. Dave’s begun to dig into the food, using his fingers like a Greek emperor. You do the same because why the fuck not?

He fiddles with the buttons to get his Netflix thing on to play a movie. “What do you want to see?” he asks, flipping through shows.

  
“Mega Shark,” you reply automatically before biting the large chicken bone in half to eat the marrow. You really didn’t think human’s had chickens this big….wait.

This was a turkey.

Dave’s got Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus on and everything falls into place. You swallow a mouthful of marrow and say, “It’s Thanksgiving.”

He grins.

“Oh you asshole!” You punch his shoulder. “You could have said!”

“I was seeing how long it took you to figure it out. Three hours, thirty six minutes and twenty nine seconds.”

“You asshole!” you shout again, laughing. “That explains a hell of a lot, though, like why they let us out of work early.”

“And the turkey. And mashed potatoes. And yams.”

“But not the bacon.” You reply, “or the pancakes.”

He shrugs. “I always had pancakes on thanksgiving. Remember?”

Now you do. You remember three years ago when he told you about how Bro would make him turkey shaped pancakes but they always came out as weird hand shaped globs. But he’d tried, and that’s what mattered. These days its Dave who makes you those pancakes and turns on your only favorite movie and gets you drunk on booze and eggy nog.

You lean over and kiss his cheek.

He smiles, very slightly.

“I’m thankful to have you with me again this year,” you murmur into his ear. “Happy Thanksgivin’.”

“Sap,” he whispers back, “I’m thankful that you’re here again too.” His kiss tastes like bacon and chocolate and eggnog. It’s perfect.

* * *

The credits are rolling on Dave’s movie, Willy Wonka, when he shifts against your side. You’re stuffed and warm and a little sleepy. You smile when you feel him curl his fingers on the opening of your duck thing and pulls it back. Your trapped fin escapes with a little flutter and he kisses your cheek. You blink, seeing him in perfect clarity while the rest of the world was drowned in fuzziness because of your lack of glasses. He’s smiling too, kissing you up your cheek to your lips, pressing against you.

You’re drowning in warmth and comfort, so you turn from your stomach to your side, from your side to your back and let him kiss and kiss you. You’re not surprised when he slips a leg between yours, or to find that when he grinds his hips down against you, he’s already getting hard.

Running your fingers through his hair, you pull off those shades and look into those eyes you really don’t get to see enough of. He laughs softly and attacks you with tender kisses. His fingers slide down your sides and then back up again, going for your zipper. You shiver when you hear the sound of the zipper opening and your bare chest is revealed. Even without the cloth you remain warm.

“Dave,” you murmur, as he kisses along your chest. He looks up, smiling.

How many years have you been with him? That was one of those other things you tended to forget. It was important but your grasp of time was never like his. You relied on him too much. In the half shadow from credits on the screen and the blanket fort, he looks a lot older than he did the first time you met him, back when you were both thirteen and he was a punk taking pictures of leaves ironically and you were attempting to write poetry for a girl you thought you loved.

He has lines between his eyebrows and on either side of his mouth and you think that grey hair is only a matter of time. You cup his cheek and bring him back up for a deep kiss, arching into it, giving your whole body to it. When he pulls back, he’s breathing heavily and grinning down at you, “What was that for?”

“You know how when we go on picnics to the park you always kind of look at those families with their little wigglers or whatever and the family dog and kind of get all morose?”

His smile fades. “Yeah…”

“And you don’t ever really say it, but I can fuckin’ tell you’re thinkin’ about your Bro and how he raised you and havin’ a wiggler a your own.”

“Eridan,” his voice is soft, warning soft. You feel his hands tighten on your arms.

“So let’s do it.”

A pause. A heartbeat of silence. “What.”

“We can’t physically make one ourselves, gender notwithstandin’, but we can adopt, right?”

“What?” His voice softens. “You’d… you want…”

“We can get one in time for that other human holiday comin’ up, right? The one with all the presents. Fuck, Dave, we have that spare room and we never fuckin’ do anything for that except go to friends and they all got wigglers. So let’s do it. Let’s get one and raise one together.”

Dave kisses you hard and sloppily, like he did when you were teenagers still figuring out how to make mouths do that business. He ran his hand down your body like a line of contained fire and before you could even breathe in, his fingers were at your nook, rubbing along the sensitive edges just inside and making you shudder. It’s unfair that he can kiss you like that and still be able to use his hand, but he’s had a lot of practice in making you feel too much all at once.

His mouth moves to your neck, licking along the closed slit of gills while his fingers move in deeper. You know he’s going to ruin the onesie and the pillows underneath if he keeps this up. You have a feeling that he really doesn’t give a fuck about that.

By the time his mouth has made its way down your chest to your abdomen, your bulge is curling against your hip and trying to coil around his wrist. Looking up you see only fuzzy blanket, and that’s nothing special so you just close your eyes and let him make the world explode behind your eyelids.

You groan, loud and from deep in your chest when you feel his mouth at the base of your bulge. No matter how warm you get, it was always cold and his mouth was always deliciously hot. His fingers move in deeper as he uses his other hand to give your bulge something to curl around. He licks and sucks on you, shifting on his knees until he’s between your legs.

Your hips are off the ground, and you claw at the pillows when you feel his dull teeth slide over your sensitive bulge. He takes his time working it into his mouth and you whimper in tortured pleasure when you can finally feel his mouth opening up to your probing coil. The deeper his fingers go, the deeper your bulge goes, until you’re seeing stars and struggling to breathe and shaking as though you had just been tossed out in the snow. You’re babbling his name and curses and all manner of things but when he finally brings you over the edge with a slurp along your bulge it’s his name that flies from your lips in a scream.

With muscles still quivering, you feel him spreading your legs and pulling you close. Your purple genetic fluid is all over your hips and stomach, but Dave doesn’t give a single fuck. He’s got his onesie open down to his crotch and you just barely push yourself up in time to see his hard cock before he starts pushing it into your wet nook.

He moans as he pushes inside of you, bending over so you can put your arms around his shoulders. He lifts you up and your horns catch on the top of the blanket fort but you don’t give a single fuck. You’re riding his cock, moving your hips and with your clothing half off now. He kisses you with a mouth that tastes salty like the ocean and you come away with purple lips.

He laughs against your throat and groans when he finally gets deep enough that your nook tries to seal around him and the little connecting half tentacles inside start squeezing him. His face is red on his cheeks and purple on his chin and you kiss him until his eyes are as unfocused and unhinged as you think he should be.

He ends up pushing you back down onto your back and thrusting in deep. He grinds against you before he pulls back a little, only to thrust again. Dave comes to completion inside of you, whimpering your name against your throat and digging his fingers into your shoulders. You hold him tightly, as close as you can, and your face hurts from smiling so much.

Dave begins to laugh, shaking laughter that makes you laugh too, even though you don’t know why. Eventually he pushes himself up and says, “Oh no, Eridan, you’re going to be human pregnant!”

The two of you dissolve into crying giggles; the pinnacle of adulthood. 


	7. She smiles like you’re leaving forever

The orphanage that you go to is one of those mixed race ones in the center of the city. It’s clear that it doesn’t have as much money as it should, with cracked sidewalk and rusting fence, but the paint on the door and sills is fresh and the sound of children from the enclosed yard is laughter and bubbling.

Plus, after a few weeks of research, this is the second place that will give you the least trouble in adopting. You and Dave were not just same gender, after all, but different species and with different lifespans.

On the top step, you take Eridan’s hand  and squeeze it tightly. He gives you a little half smile and knocks. This is your last option. Despite your years together and potential for a good home, the first place had taken real issue to a violetblood, of all damn things. Apparently a highblood didn’t have the care necessary for their kids. From what you saw, though, most of the adults running that place were lowbloods and the kids were as well.

“Seadwellers don’t die off easily,” Eridan had said quietly in the car as you drove to this place, “An those who kill a parent aren’t goin’ to let their kid stick around long enough, not when they can live for a long time after.” The implications that the child would get revenge are there, but unsaid.

At this place, a tastefully dressed human woman opens the door and invites you both inside. You’ve done some preliminary calling and arranging with them, so the paperwork is a breeze.

She offers to let you two go look at the kids out in the yard while she gets the paperwork entered in. Eridan jumps at the chance. The two of you are led towards the side door and out to the yard. Kids of both species and a large range of ages race about, playing games in large groups and in small groups. You look out over the group as a whole, not seeing any particular child stand out to you.

A few of them notice and curiously come closer, but an attending adult, this one an oliveblooded man, shoos them away. You get a few timid smiles and waves and many curious looks.

Eridan’s hand slips from yours, and that’s when you notice he’s staring off towards the fence. He’s taken a step forward without realizing it. You follow his gaze and blink in surprise. The girl sitting by herself beside the fence is in a blue dress and her horns are…

You remember horns like those, belonging to one broadly grinning troll girl and more faintly to the quietly confident ancestor. “Vriska?” You whisper.

Eridan shakes his head. “She’s grown already. Older than us even. It has to be Aranea.” He turns to look at you and grabs your hand again. He squeezes it tightly and then says, “Dave.”

You squeeze back. “Yeah. I know.”

“She’s so alone. Why the fuck is she alone? She was so fuckin’ nice.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“We can’t leave her here.”

You smile. “Yeah. I know.”

That makes his brows furrow and a scowl twist his lips, “If you know already, why haven’t you done anythin’ about it!”

“Because,” you say with a shrug, “I can’t do this alone. We have to tell them we want to adopt her, together.”

The anger vanishes, replaced with a sweet smile and a little wiggle of his fins. He leans in and kisses your cheek, whispering, “You’re too fuckin’ good with words, Dave.”

* * *

The little sitting room they have you and Eridan wait in is disgustingly normal looking. There’s a couch and a little polished coffee table with a couple of magazines. The only strange thing was a collection of pictures of children with families hanging in frames on the wall. The adopted ones, you figure. Eridan’s pacing back and forth in front of the pictures, with his hands twisted behind his back.

Eventually the door opens and in walks the woman with the young girl trailing behind her. “This is Aranea.” The woman says with a smile. She looks to the girl and says, “Aranea, this is Dave Strider and Eridan Ampora.”

She urges the girl forward with a little push to her shoulders. Aranea steps forward and glances back at the woman. She frowns a little. The woman steps back. “I’ll be just outside the door if you need anything at all.” She gives everyone a bright smile and then steps out, leaving the door open just a little.

Aranea turns and looks at you both. Her bottom lip sticks out just a little but her sad expression is ruined by the glare she’s giving. She takes a deep breath and then says in a small voice, “I’m not a good little quiet girl. I can read your thoughts, your emotions. You won’t like that.”

You blink in surprise but Eridan walks forward, chuckling, “Yeah. I know. You’re a strong little psychic, aren’t you? Stronger than any other of your caste?”

Her little hands bunch into fists in front of her. She’s staring intently at him, silent.

He drops to a knee in front of her. “I knew a girl a long time ago who was like you. She was stronger than everyone said she was supposed to be. She could control people with her mind, and make them do things that they didn’t always want to do.”

Aranea’s eyes grow wide, but she leans in. You remember that she loved stories, to tell and to listen to.

“She and I were friends, and sometimes enemies, but she was always the girl I thought was the strongest and most courageous of all. The thing was, because she wasn’t the nicest, and because she had a power that scared people, they were afraid of her.”

The girl’s bottom lip begins to quiver. “Were you afraid of her?”

“Me? No way. We were friends.” Eridan shakes his head, “I was only scared that she’d be better than me at being a pirate. I never thought she’d really hurt me, even if she could take over my head. She wasn’t always mean. She could be thoughtful and remorseful and pull pranks and even be romantic if she wanted to be. It was just a lot of people treated her badly, they didn’t understand her, and that made her angry a lot.” Eridan tilted his head to the side, “Do you get angry, Aranea?”

She looks down at the floor, but her head bobs up and down.

“Dave and I want to adopt you,” Eridan’s voice is soft. His hands go out to her shoulders. “We want to take you home and raise you as our daughter. We want to help you be happy, and to get along with your abilities. You’re a special girl and we see that. We want you to be our amazing daughter.

“Right, Dave?” He looks over his shoulder at you. You smile and nod your head.

“I think you made her cry.”

“Eh?” He turns back around and sure enough Aranea’s holding her face in her hands, sniffling and trying to stop herself. Eridan pulls her into a hug and she cries against his shirt. You step up to the two of them and put one hand on her head and the other on Eridan’s shoulder.

The woman comes into the room in a rush, with a worried expression to find the three of you like that.

* * *

“This is fuckin’ bullshit!” Eridan shouts the moment you get into the car next to him. He’s with his arms folded tightly over his chest, his fingers digging into his arms so tightly that his knuckles have lost a shade of grey. “We can’t take her home cause we’re not fuckin’ married? We have to leave her livin’ with those fuckin’ kids who treat her like she’s got the plague? She needs a better fuckin’ environment!”

You grip the steering wheel. There has to be something that you two could do. You close your eyes and all you can see are her sad golden eyes as you leave her behind. She’s smiling, but it’s the kind of smile that thanks you for being around while you could but knows you were always going to leave. Eridan’s heart wasn’t the only one that broke.

No amount of _this is how things are_ or _we’ll figure it out and come get you_ could change that look on her face or the one Eridan had as you dragged him out the building. The idea that he couldn’t walk out right then with Aranea in hand had first crushed him and now just made him furious. He slammed his fist on the dash of the car and then covered his face with his hands as he shouted wordlessly.

You can’t even move, or breathe, or blink. If you blink, you see her. If you breathe, you’ll scream. If you move, you’ll fall apart.

Eridan isn’t shouting anymore. He just cries into his hands.

You sit numbly in the car. You can’t feel your face, let alone cry. You reach over and grip Eridan’s knee tightly. He cries louder.

The sudden opening of the backseat door scares the shit out of both of you. You whirl around to see the five year old troll girl climbing into the backseat of your four door car. She shuts the door and buckles herself in. Eridan curses as he scrubs his face with his sleeve. You just kind of, stare at her.

Her hands are clenched tightly on her seat belt and she whispers, “If you drive now they won’t know we’ve gone until it’s too late.”

Eridan looks at you with an expression that says he’s actually thinking about it.

You hate having to be the fucking adult about this, but you shake your head. “Aranea, we don’t have permission to take you with us.” Your voice doesn’t shake and it’s a miracle. “You have to go back inside.”

“Ms. Lade wants you to take me. Mr. Hunner wants you to take me too. It’s only that mean old Mrs. Green who says I have to stay. They say that you’d be a good daddy,” She’s looking to Eridan now. “Please. I know you’re sad because you have to leave me. But if we drive away you don’t have to leave me at all and we can be happy!” There are blue tears in the corners of her eyes. “Mrs. Green has never liked me, not ever, not once! She doesn’t like anyone there at all! She shouldn’t be able to make the rules!”

Eridan grips your arm tightly, “Dave,” he whispers.

“No.” It’s the hardest thing you’ve ever said. You pull away from Eridan and open the door. You go around to the back and open it. Aranea is staring at her shoes, shaking her head from side to side.

“Don’t make me go, Mr. Strider. Please, don’t make me go.”

“Don’t make this any harder than it is, kiddo.” You crouch down, whispering. You unbuckle her and start lifting her from the seat. She crumples up in your arms and starts crying again.

“But you want me!” she said against your neck. “You want me as your daughter, why are you doing this?”

The sound of the car door shutting is just like the sound of your heart falling onto the concrete. “I’ll explain it when you’re older.”

She kicks you and beats her fists on your shoulders as she shouts, “You’re never even going to see me when I’m older!” It hurts, even though she’s just a kid, it hurts when she hits you. You take it and you carry her all the way back to the front steps. The moment you knock on the door, she gives up fighting you and just sobs helplessly. The door opens to Ms. Lade, the young human woman. She looks at you in shock.

“She snuck out and climbed into the back seat of our car,” You untangle your shirt from Aranea’s fingers and hand her to the woman. “Sorry for the trouble.”

Aranea turns away from you and cries against Lade’s shoulder instead. The woman opens her mouth to say something, but shakes her head, closing it. You nod goodbye and turn, walking away with your hands in your pockets so you don’t run back and snatch her away.

Eridan is angry silent in the car when you get back into the driver’s seat. You reach over to touch his hand but he jerks it away from you. Gritting your teeth, you hold onto the steering wheel and begin to drive. The whole way home, all you can think about is the blue tears drying on your white shirt.

* * *

Eridan doesn’t talk to you, beyond “pass the salt” and “dinner’s at seven” for a week.

Eridan doesn’t look at you for a week. He stares right through you or doesn’t even look up at you at all.

Eridan doesn’t kiss you back.

Eridan doesn’t hold your hand.

Eridan doesn’t sleep in the same bed as you.

For a whole.

Fucking.

Week.

Saturday finally comes back around and you stand in the kitchen, drinking coffee and watching as he, yet again, stubbornly ignores you. You’re leaning against the cupboard and he’s reading a paper at the table. He reaches for his cup, notices that its empty and, while still holding the paper, begins to get up to refill it.

You do what you always do and you take the pot and step over. You fill up the mug and try to smile but it’s hard, it’s so damn hard to smile at him. He lowers the paper, watching you pour. When you finish, he very deliberately stands up, picks up the cup and walks across the room. He takes the mug to the sink.

He turns it over and pours the coffee down the sink.

In the next second he’s ducking because there’s exploding glass and coffee beside him from where you throw the glass pot at the cupboard. “Fuck you,” you snarl, “ _Fuck_ you. Do you want to explain why the fuck you’re doing this or should we keep playing this silent fucking _war_ until we fall apart and the adoption won’t even be a question anymore because you and I won’t be a thing anymore!”

His eyes are wide behind his stupid glasses. His mouth drops open and you hear this weak noise that was probably supposed to be a word or phrase but sounded more like the whine of a dog. You try to take a breath, or three, to calm yourself down, but your hands are clenched at your sides and you can’t stand this anymore.

He looks down at the glass on the floor and the coffee dripping from the counter. He closes his eyes and grips the counter for support. You can almost see when he gathers himself. His shoulders straighten and he clenches his teeth together. Eridan takes a step away from the counter, towards you, and meets your gaze with a sneer and a glare, “Fuck me? Fuck you! What you did to Aranea- just takin’ her back to that place, when she wants to be with us. She’d do so much better with us!”

“We didn’t have permission to take her! We could have been arrested for kidnapping!”

“So? She needs a home, Dave, a home where she’s not hated for her ability. She needs to be understood and taken care of. That place is goin’ to make her bitter and ruin her. That place could kill her!”

“She’s five!” You take a step towards him, “She’s five and she isn’t ours. We can find a way to get her, just give it time!”

“Give it time!” He throws his hands up into the air, “That’s your favorite fuckin’ phrase isn’t it! You said the same damn thing in highschool!”

“This isn’t like that situation at all.” You bite back your shout this time. He’s hurt, you realize. Of course you’re hurt too but he’s probably bleeding inside and doesn’t know how to stop. No wonder he was staying on the couch, the stupid throw pillows were nearly the same shade as his tears. “We’re not kids. We’re adults. We can figure something out, we can work on this until we get the right result. We can do this, Eridan, it’s just going to take some time.”

Tears fill his eyes, “You just…carried her… you just carried her back to that place. You just picked her up and carried her away.” His shoulders shake. “She’s just so little and so helpless and we couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t stop you or help you or help her. I’m so useless.”

You cross the kitchen and put your arms around him. “You’re not useless,” you whisper, “Not everyone could have done what I did. I could barely do it myself.”

“She’ll hate us, hate us for taking her back there. And we’ll never be able to get her out of that place.”

You run your fingers through his hair, leaning your cheek against the base of one of his horns. He just cries against your chest. His fingers curl in your T-shirt tightly. You rub his back as he cries.

He calms, somewhat, and then sniffles, and says so softly that when the words reach you you’re surprised with how they run straight through your heart. “You’re not thinkin’ a leavin’ me, are you?”

You lift his head up and kiss him. When he falters in kissing you back, you kiss him again. You keep kissing him until he pushes on your chest and says, “That’s not really an answer you know.”

“Do you know how long it would take me to get so tired of you being an asshole to me before I left?” You say in a rush of words, holding his face in your hands, “Do you know how long I would hold onto you, letting you drain me dry of everything I have before I even thought of really, truly, giving you up?”

He pushes his glasses up to wipe his eyes. “Stop it. You’re makin’ me feel like I don’t give as much to this relationship as you do.”

You kiss him lightly on the lips, remembering that night in highschool, beneath the stars and on a blanket on the grass. Cool gray fingers tangled with yours and a timid, lengthy explanation of his perspective. You had never been so glad to be born a human. You’d only outlive the friends of yours who died in accidents or something self-inflicted. Eridan was going to have to carry you around in his memories for the rest of his long life. “You give a lot, Eridan. You give so much. I know you’d probably be able to take more shit from me than I ever could from you. You’d last so much longer.”

He grumbles something about how that’s really not all that impressive, your shit isn’t as bad as some assholes he’s known. You shut him up with another kiss.

“How about we clean up this mess?” you say after that. He gives a little nod.

The two of you pick up the glass and wipe up the coffee. He laughs because you dented the wood and you just roll your eyes at him. As declares that coffee isn’t a real breakfast, and just after you tell him breakfast is usually eaten before eleven in the morning, his phone rings.

You playfully swat his ass as he goes by. He picks up his phone from the table and looks at the caller ID. His laughter dies in his throat and he turns towards you with the phone ringing in his hand, “It’s the orphanage.”

You race over and snatch it from him. His hands are shaking so badly you almost drop it. When you answer, he’s got a hold of your hand and he’s not letting go. The elderly voice on the other side is brisk and matter-of-fact. “Is this Mr. Strider or Mr. Ampora?”

“Mr. Strider,” the words sound strange on your tongue. Not even your Bro was Mr. Strider, except to doctors and policemen. “What can I do to help you, Mrs. Green?”

“I heard about what happened last week when you left. I’ll be needing you two to come in next week sometime for a follow up conversation. It seems that there were a few avenues of action that you two could take that were not presented in our last discussion.”

You look like a fool, grinning as broadly as you are, but you eagerly agree, “Yes. Sure. We’d love to. Do you know when you’d like to see us?”

“Wenesday at six.”

“All right. I got it. We’ll see you Wednesday.”

“Oh, and Mr. Strider?”

“Yes?”

“I was very impressed. Have a nice weekend.” The woman hangs up without another word.

You look at Eridan, speechless. He grins back at you. “We can do this.”

“Yeah.” You say, pocketing the phone and pulling him close. “We have fucking got this.”

Eridan laughs, even while you kiss him.

* * *

 Eridan gives you this grateful, exhausted, and relieved smile when the two of you step out of Mrs. Green’s office. He reaches over and takes your hand. The two of you stand in the hall way like that for a few minutes before you hear the sound of small shoes clacking on the hardwood floor.

Aranea approaches from the far end. She is wearing a backpack and carrying a stuffed, worn octopus in her arms. She stops when you both look up to see her. She looks down and then back up with a small smile. “We would have left Octavian behind if you took me before.”

Eridan’s hand slips out of yours as he goes to Aranea. You know he’s smiling, even though you can’t see him. “Is this him?” You follow Eridan over and see her nodding.

She holds out the spotted octopus, “Mhm, I got him when I was one. You like him?”

His earfins wiggle, “I love all sorts of ocean creatures.”

Aranea stares. She reaches up a hand and then hesitates. You see Eridan lean in his head and smile just a little more. She carefully runs her fingers over the edge of his earfin. Eridan laughs too and wiggles them again.

You smile indulgently at the two of them. “Are you two ready to go?”

Eridan nods, standing back up. He holds out his hand to Aranea. She looks up at you with big eyes. “We’re really going?” You barely need to nod before she’s smiling even wider. “For reals? Really really going? Going together forever?”

Eridan smiles, “They want you to stay with us for a couple of months, to see if we’re good enough parents, and then at the end of that you’ll be adopted by one of us.”

She frowns slightly. “Not both of you?”

“Because we’re not married,” Eridan begins explaining, “They won’t let us adopt you together. But they will let one of us adopt you and since we live together, the two of us will raise you together. Legally it’ll say whatever it wants, but that doesn’t matter. You’ll be ours.”

She frowns more. “What?”

“It’ll be easier to understand when you’re older,” you say, getting her attention. “A lot of it is legal bullshit that even confuses us a little. What matters, Aranea, is that after six months, if you’re happy with us and Mrs. Green says that we’re good for you, is that a couple of papers are going to be signed and we’re going to be a permanent family.”

She stares up at you, chewing on her bottom lip. She stepped forward and gripped the sleeve of your jacket. “Dave?”

“Yeah kid?”

“I’m sorry I hit you,” her voice was tiny and she was looking at her little grey hand on your grey sleeve.

You stoop down and scoop her up into your arms. She gasps and grips your shirt tightly. “It’s okay, Bubbles. I understand.”

“Dave!” Eridan hisses. He hates that name.

You ignore him and start heading down the hallway, “We have a lot of clothing and stuff to buy you for your new bedroom, Bubbles, and we still need to go out to dinner!” Eridan hurries to follow you two.

“Don’t call her Bubbles!”

“Why not?” You say, “I think it’s a perfect name for her. What do you think, Bubbles?”

Aranea smiles, kicking her feet a little as she put her arm around your neck and waved to Eridan, “Come on, Daddy! Hurry up!” You glance over your shoulder to see Eridan standing gobsmacked in the hallway. Wide eyes and dropped open mouth and fins twitching.

Aranea and you share a smile, “I think you broke him.” She giggles into your shoulder. It takes Eridan a moment or two, but he comes hurrying towards you two, smiling so broadly you think he’s going to split a lip. He leans in to kiss your cheek and then smiles to Aranea.

“I’m not broken, let’s go get some dinner and clothes. Lots and lots of clothes.”

The sound of Aranea’s laughter is the sweetest thing you’ve heard in a long time.

* * *

Aranea is a solid slumbering weight against your chest and shoulder as you walk up the front walk to your house. Eridan follows behind you with his arms loaded down with bags. You hear a soft sound and glance down to see Octavian has fallen out of her grip. With a breathy chuckle, you bend your knees and manage to pick it up.

You get up the steps, to the door and manage to unlock it without dropping the toy again. You push open the door with your toe and step into the dark house. You flick on the hallway lights and make your way to the stairs. Behind you, the door shuts and you hear the bags hit the ground. The lock clicks on the front door. “Dave?”

You stop halfway on the stairs and turn around, “Yeah?” You keep your voice soft for Aranea.

Eridan’s got this adorable, hopeful expression on his face and you know that whatever he’s going to ask for, you’re going to give him. “It’s her first night… can she sleep with us?”

“Yeah, grab that nightgown for her?”

Eridan’s grinning like a fool as he starts rooting around in the bags. You carry Aranea the rest of the way up the stairs and too the bedroom you share with Eridan. It’s cleaner than it usually is, because Eridan’s nervousness makes him clean and clean and clean. You wonder if that’s a learned trait, if Aranea will pick that up from him. The idea of a little Aranea following Eridan around with a cloth and a duster makes your heart grow another size.

Eridan meets you up in your bedroom with the soft cotton nightgown for Aranea. She wakes up a little when you start taking off her shoes, but only blinks sleepily at you both. She pulls on the nightgown with only a little trouble with her horns and Eridan buttons her up. You’re surprised how easily she settles with her octopus in her arms, lying in the middle of your king sized bed.

You look up and catch Eridan smiling down at her with a confused, but tender expression. You reach over and take his hand. He blinks and smiles, “We’re parents.”

“Go get dressed for bed, Mr. Mom.”

“Oh my God, I am not Mr. Mom. You’re Mr. Mom. You stay home all day!”

“I do not.”

“Oh yes you do.”

This is the first whispered teasing argument the two of you have ever had. Eridan is even quietly opening and shutting his dresser drawers as he pulls out pajama bottoms for the both of you. You have a feeling that this isn’t the last time you’ll be whisper talking with him over a sleeping Aranea and it makes you feel a little giddy inside. “Give me those pants and get your ass into bed.”

“Yes sir,” he says with a roll of his eyes. He climbs in on his side and when you’ve finished changing you get in on yours. You leave your glasses on the night stand and pull up the covers.

Eridan’s got his head resting on his arm and he’s already yawning. He puts an arm around Aranea and scoots closer to her. You lay down behind her and tentatively put your hand on his on her back. You can feel her breathing. You can feel her heart beating. Eridan’s eyes are half open, and all he’s doing is watch her sleep.

You slide your fingers between his on her back and smile. He yawns again and this time you do it after him. “Goodnight Eridarling,” you murmur sleepily.

“G’night Davey,” he murmurs back, his eyes slipping closed. The sound of their sleeping is a lullaby you never thought you’d like so much. 


	8. Kilts, Pelts and Arrows

Holding onto your daddy’s hand, walking between him and your Bro, it’s often hard to feel other people’s minds. They were pretty noisy; your daddy was a swirl of bright sparks and purple coils, like the snuggly arms of Octavian. Bro was warm and lit up like a campfire from when you went camping this summer with your parents. Sometimes he was like little embers, but sometimes, like when he was making his music, he was giant flames.

You liked how they never asked you to tell them what they were thinking, or to try and describe how you knew what it was when you didn’t really see words or hear things. You liked how Daddy held your hand and Bro tugged on a lock of your hair to get your attention.

You smile up at them and laugh when Daddy ushers you forward. You trot down the walk way, passing a few kids in outfits. They’re all popping and sparkling the way kids get when they get excited. You’re excited too. It’s your first Halloween with a real outfit and a real trip up and down the streets for candy. You get up to the door and ring the bell.

A woman with pretty blonde hair opens the door. She’s a human wearing orange horns that twist like licorice and is in a green suit. “Trick or treat!” You have to shuffle your bow to hang on your arm so you can hold out your suitcase.

The woman claps her hands together. “Oh you look marvelous! What a _brave_ little girl!” She giggles, holding out the bowl. “Go ahead and get a handful dear, there’s plenty!” You smile up at her and carefully pick out a couple of your favorite pieces.

“Thank you,” you say politely. She has a pretty glowing aura around her. She’s happy, really happy, giving away candy to kids. You wave a little and go back down the path towards your parents.

These two big kids are walking up as you go. They’re both trolls. They look familiar. You stop and look at them. The taller one doesn’t like you staring so much so he stops too.

“What are you looking at,” he says, leaning in towards you. He’s got purple all around his head, jagged waves like they’re made out of bits of glass. He’s got a cape and a red and gold scarf on. He points a wooden stick at you. 

“Don’t be rude, Cronus,” the shorter troll says. “Can’t you see she is a princess?” This one is dressed like a mummy. He has a funny sign on his chest, but you don’t recognize the word. It begins with the letters T and W. It’s too dark to see it properly.

You shrink down a little because this Cronus just frowns at you and keeps pointing his wand. “So what if she’s a princess? I’m the Chosen One, see!” He points to scars on his forehead, “And its real too!”

“You worry about a princess cause she’s got parents, kid.”

You smile at the sound of Daddy’s voice. The two older kids turn around. Your daddy stands with his arms folded across his chest. Even in his funny skirt thing, he’s scary looking with that big axe on his back. You know it’s made out of foam, but the kids don’t.

And then your Bro is standing there with his cool shades and that sword on his hip. That sword was real.

They stare at your Bro and Daddy and then the short kid says, “The bear didn’t have a sword in Brave.”

The taller kid punches his shoulder and hisses, “Kankri! Shut up!”

You drop your bag of candy and pull one of the little arrows from your quiver. It shakes a little when you hold it up, but the look on the Cronus kid’s face when you poke him in the back and he turns around is the best thing in the world. “You don’t have to worry about my parents at all. You can’t even handle me!”

“I don’t think that-,” the short one, Kankri begins to say. Cronus pushes him this time, “We have candy to get. Happy Halloween!” The two of them go up to the nice lady’s house.

You grin up at your parents. Daddy wipes away a tear from his eye and Bro reaches out for a high five. You give it to him and put the arrow away. Picking up your candy, you take your Daddy’s hand and say, “I like that house. That lady was nice. Can we come here again next year?”

“Sure kiddo,” Bro says, ruffling your hair. “Whatever you like.”

You laugh and that makes him smile really big so you laugh some more and swing your daddy’s hand in yours. You had the best parents in the whole wide world.


End file.
